The present invention relates to methods, systems and computer program products for providing media files and more particularly, to providing media files in a format suitable for tuning on a set-top box.
Smart devices, such as personal computers and the like, are now generally provided with communications capabilities. For example, such devices are typically provided with wired or wireless access to the Internet to allow for downloading and viewing of content from Internet Service Providers (ISPs), electronic mail (email) communications and the like. In addition, such devices are often also configured for presenting other forms of media: such as music or video.
One type of smart device is a set-top box that may be used to receive a television signal and display the signal on a television monitor. Such devices have been used, for example, to receive conventional cable television (CATV) and satellite TV broadcast signals. In addition, it has been proposed that media, such as broadcast network television or the like, may be provided using the internet protocol based on a proposed Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) standard using IP set-top boxes as the receiving device.
An IP set-top box is generally a dedicated computing device that serves as an interface between a television set and a broadband network. IP set-top boxes can generally provide functionality that includes video-on-demand (VOD), Electronic Program Guide (EPG), digital rights management (DRM) and other interactive and multimedia services. They also generally decode and render broadcast TV signals and can also support features, such as Web browsing, e-mail and viewing e-mail attachments, advanced multimedia codecs, home networking, personal computer connectivity, gateway functionality, instant messaging (IM), and real-time voice over IP (VoIP).
Using broadcast protocols, very large size media services, such as movies and the like, may readily be delivered to and shared with users. In contrast, delivery of media files by email and the like, while available to an individual user of a computing device, may be limited, particularly for very large files. This may limit the amount and/or quality of video or the like that may be conveniently shared between individuals using such means. As such, these larger files generally cannot be easily provided to even IP set-top boxes and sharing of such larger files with relatives or the like may be limited.